How Transleaf translates a file

Reading the whole file first

Before translating a word, Transleaf reads the entire file. For a book it counts words, chapters, footnotes and images, and notes which images contain text. For a document it counts pages and finds tables; for subtitles, cues and timings. This is what you see on the first screen, together with the exact word count the price is based on.

The analysis also splits the file into parts: front matter, chapters and back matter, or pages. You choose which parts to translate. The copyright page is left out by default, since a translated edition needs its own.

Building a glossary

Long texts go wrong in a predictable way: a name is translated one way in chapter 2 and another way in chapter 20. To prevent this, the analysis collects every person, place and invented word, counts how often each appears and picks a rule for it.

• People keep their names: Mara Ellison stays Mara Ellison.
• Places get a form in the target language: Lantern Quay becomes Laternenkai in German.
• Invented words are translated: the Tidewardens become die Gezeitenwächter.

Style settings

You can change any glossary entry before translation starts. The same screen holds the style settings: how characters address each other (informal, formal or decided per relationship), the regional variant, such as German for Germany, Austria or Switzerland, and whether idioms are adapted or kept close to the original. A free-text field takes anything else, like a note about a character’s voice.

Translating with the whole file in view

Each part is translated with the glossary, the style settings and the context of the whole file. Chapter 20 knows who appeared in chapter 2 and how they speak. Typography is converted to the target language’s rules: quotation marks, number formats, dialogue punctuation.

Layout is handled separately from the words. Text goes back into the same chapters, paragraphs, table cells, slide boxes or subtitle cues, so the file you download has the structure of the file you uploaded.

Review notes

Where the translation makes a choice you may want to check, it leaves a note: an idiom kept as an image, a pun with no equivalent, a scene where a change from formal to informal address carries meaning. Notes appear next to the text in the preview and on the download screen. They are never written into the translated file.

Free preview and reruns

The first chapter of a book, the first three pages of a document or scan, or the first five minutes of subtitles are translated before you pay anything. If a name or the tone is wrong, change the setting and run the preview again, up to three times, free. The price shown next to the preview is the price you pay.

What we don’t do

Some limits are worth knowing before you upload:

• There is no human editor. The translation is done by AI with the settings you chose. If the text is going to readers, read it first.
• Text inside images is left as it is in books, unless you add image text translation for $0.40 per order.
• Encrypted EPUB files with DRM and password-protected PDFs cannot be opened. Upload a DRM-free copy, or a PDF without the password.
• We do not promise that a translation meets a store’s rules. Amazon KDP, Kobo and Apple Books each ask about AI use, and their rules change.
• Very faded or cramped handwriting may not be recognized. The page that failed is named, so you can rescan it.

How the price is set

The price is calculated from the words in the parts you select, never from the length of the translation. Read costs $0.25 per 1,000 words with a $3 minimum. Publish costs $0.60 per 1,000 words with a $9 minimum and adds the editable glossary, the style guide and review notes. Plans include a monthly number of words instead, and on a plan each scanned page counts as 250 words.

What happens to your files

Uploaded files are never used to train AI models. They are deleted 30 days after upload, together with their translations; on the Free plan, files are kept for 7 days. Downloads use temporary signed links that expire, so a forwarded link stops working after a while.